Websites have enabled users to search for and purchase a variety of products and services. It is becoming more commonplace for individuals to both shop for and sell products through online marketplaces. An online marketplace (or e-commerce marketplace) is a type of e-commerce site where product or service information is provided by multiple third parties, whereas transactions are processed by the marketplace operator. Online marketplaces are typically adapted to accommodate either very small-scale sellers who can manually enter and track a small number of items, or very large-scale sellers who form partnerships with selected online marketplaces.
A seller may create a listing for an item which may in turn be recalled and displayed within a set of search results by the online marketplace in response to a search request received from a buyer. Oftentimes, in order to gain an advantage over other sellers within an online marketplace, a seller may create multiple listings for a single item in order to garner more attention and views. As a result, search results may become congested with duplicative item listings and thus may not accurately indicate all available items from all sellers.